I can't really complain about this, since I've been on both sides of the tech support chain. Trust me it's a fickle mistress for those that call and those who receive. And I would like to bring up the different genres of both the helper and the helped that makes up the majority of such. Wha, you thought that this was a going to be a serious post?!? Listen, just cause I've taken a little time off between posts and I've been on a serious kick for most of my recent posts, so I decided to just let this one rip. I've been long overdue for a WTF PEOPLE!?! for a good while now. So let's get'r dun and have some fun on this one...
Let me start with the funnier of the two. The people that call in for help or even worse brave enough to meet with the diabolical supernerds to help them with whatever. Oh how I can so poke fun at this. Recently a coworker had shown me this site, The Oatmeal, it opened my eyes to what I wanted to WTF about for a good while. And the sad thing is, most of this stuff is right on point. It's almost like it seems that to the tech support person on the receiving end's brain is imploding in front of their client with their queries. Most of which are reasonable because they either are 1) sincerely too daft to perform such tasks themselves without any help or 2) to lazy to RTFM!!! That's the good kind of customers. Need some help and can normally be coached to do the right thing or at least figure out where they can research where to do the right thing. Than they're the ones that wants you to not only wants you to pull a rabbit out of a hat, but out of my ass and their asses as well. The ones that think that we (the technical support help community) are magical techno-genies that within a blink of an eye not only fix their issue but make their computer faster, turn into a transformer, and cure cancer while making sure their email will never stop working; ever! The kind of people that knows that such and such are impossible but we try and tell them time and time again that no those files can not perform that action or no it does not double as a cup holder. And then there are also the ones that think they know everything (like me at times and yes I'm playing the humility card here) and totally get owned by the one that is helping them either by proving that it was something done that was their fault or using the prescribed methods of troubleshooting after they failed to RTFM and it worked. Those kind are a special breed...
I mean I could go on and on about the side on the phone needing help; but alas, we to as the tech supporters have our own idioms that makes us flawed. Oh and in case you haven't figured it out by now, I do tech support as a nine to five; but I don't let it try to drag me into the stereotypical realm of other technical support reps that I've experienced (or at least I try to rise above that for my own right.) They are the condescending ones that try to talk as if you're tree and a haff years old wishing that you just follow their script to do this, this, this, and not that to end as quickly as possible. Those guys are epic wastes of space and they can kiss my Sasquatch-hairy ass for all I care. (Seriously I could go for a mani-pedi-glutious maxi if there was such a thing. But that's probably TMI.) Than they're those who just read off of a friggin' script, and I mean it's so bad that my seven-year-old did a better job at our church's Christmas concert last year making it more believable than these tools did over the phones. Also the outsourcing, dear Lord the outsourcing. Hence why people (like me) try to fix it ourselves most of the time unless we know we have no choice and it needs to be done on their end, my ISP for example when they were experiencing droppage of connection. I'm so friggin' done with calling Abu-Dabi that I'm ready to go out to the junction box and clear the issue my own damn self the next time it happens. But then there are those that honest, earnestly do care about their client's issues (like me, not really tooting my own horn but I do at my nine to five.) They go the extra mile to make sure that the clients truly understood what happened and even help them to be more proactive on the whatever it was about. And it's sad to say that in the industry in a whole, that's a minority. Not to say that it doesn't happen, but it doesn't happen enough. Oh, and I almost forgot about bot-techs. They're the worst. I don't want some stupid bot telling me what's wrong even after I'd RTFM and it's still not working. The bot isn't going to fix the problem. I rather have all bots eliminated and replaced by a pop-up to the help article that I'm at that will answer my question. Or at least make the bots more human like and type out snarky comments like 'is your son/daughter here to help you' or 'it seems to me that it's a PIBKAC error.' That'll at least give me a chuckle or something rather than a "WTF is that BS?!?"
If we improve our techs supporting our clients, than we won't have as many people knowing that their computer is not a Deloran and trying to find the flux capacitor and suping up their power source to 1.21 gigawatts will fix the issue. But then again, the flip side of things is that those clients that can't seem to find the Any Key will keep nerds like me employed for a long, long time. What can I say, I'm a glutton for punishment.
BootLeG sampler.. signing out...
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